Zimbabwe African People's Union

The Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) is a socialist political party in Zimbabwe, founded in 1961. ZAPU was banned by the white Rhodesian government in 1962, and it waged guerrilla war against the government during the Rhodesian Bush War of the 1960s and 1970s. The party promoted the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist state that elevated the workers of Zimbabwe to power; this led to the Soviet Union allying with the ZAPU against its ZANU rivals, who were pro-peasant and were allied with China. In 1987, ZAPU and ZANU merged into the ZANU-PF party, but it was relaunched on 8 November 2008 in opposition to Robert Mugabe's dictatorship.